How does the radio work in GTA 6, and what is on it?

The radio is half of what a Grand Theft Auto sounds like, and for GTA 6 there is no station lineup, no wheel on screen and no composer named. What there is, is the music Rockstar has already put under its own footage, and this page keeps that apart from everything else.

What the footage shows

No frame shows a radio being changed: no station wheel, no station name on screen, no tuning prompt. What the three official reveals carry is music, and the soundtrack answer holds the list. Trailer 1 runs under one song, Tom Petty’s “Love Is a Long Road”. Trailer 2 layers several: the Pointer Sisters’ “Hot Together” as its anchor, Jay Ferguson’s “Thunder Island” at the open, Zenglen’s “Child Support”, a Haitian konpa track, while Jason drives, and, identified by ear in reporting, Wang Chung’s “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” on a car radio, Tammy Wynette’s “Talkin’ to Myself Again” and a version of “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll”. The Extended Look added fourteen more under its gameplay, for a running total of 21 licensed songs on record.

Two things in that list bear on the radio. One song is identified as playing on a car radio inside the world, which is the first evidence that the radio exists as it always has. And Only Raw Records, a record label with its own desk, is a named piece of the music business in the world; its page notes that GTA V had radio stations but never a label you could see from the inside.

Everything else, a station list, DJs, a composer, whether the songs above are on a station or only in the trailers’ edit, is a leak, a rumour or an artist’s own claim, and Rockstar has backed none of it. The soundtrack answer records which artists confirmed their involvement on 15 September, and stops there.

What nobody knows

• The station lineup, and whether any of the 21 songs is on one.
• How a station is changed, and whether the wheel returns.
• Whether there is a Self Radio or any way to bring your own music.
• Whether the phone, the car and a home stereo share the same stations.

How Grand Theft Auto V did it

This is the reference, not a prediction. The GTA Wiki counts GTA V’s radio at “22 in-game radio stations, with 21 active stations in each county, one GTA Online radio station was ported to GTA V, and one user custom station”. Changing them worked like the weapons: “switching between radio stations is now done by bringing up a radio station wheel to jump to any station, or turn off the radio”, with a swipe on the PS4 touch pad as an alternative. The custom station was PC only, Self Radio, playing “songs from audio files the player places in ‘C:\Documents\Rockstar Games\GTA V\User Music'”.

What this page becomes on launch day

From 19 November 2026 this guide is rewritten from the release build: the station lineup, how a station is changed, and whether you can bring your own music, each with the date it was tested. Until then the short answer at the top stands.